Iraq actively cooperated, says Blix

By Masood Haider, DAWN,Thursday 06
March 2003 02 Muharram 1424

UNITED NATIONS, March 5: The chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix,
said on Wednesday that Iraq had actively cooperated with the UN
inspectors in the past months and expressed hope that Baghdad would
continue to cooperate.

However, Mr Blix told a press briefing that all of Iraq's biological
weapons had not been accounted for. While it was clear Iraq had dug
up more biological arms recently, it doesn't mean you can say that all
biological weapons are accounted for. No, we are not there yet, he
said.

Asked whether he would ask for four more months of inspections in Iraq
on the basis of the current level of cooperation, he responded:
They have been very active, I would say, and even proactive in the
last month or so, but in the past the track record was not so good and
I would not want to suggest that I am confident that this will
happen. I hope it will happen, he told reporters.

On the issue of the Al Samoud 2 missiles, which Iraq is destroying,
Hans Blix told reporters: The missiles is real disarmament. Here
weapons that can be used in war are being destroyed in fairly large
quantities.

He also said seven Iraqi scientists have submitted to private
interviews under his terms. Previously, scientists had either been
questioned in the presence of Iraqi government officials or had
tape-recorded the interviews.

Mr Blix said that he has asked an Arab country, which he did not
identify, to host inspectors and potential Iraqi scientists who agree
to be interviewed outside Iraq. He said Cyprus was also a possible
location for conducting interviews and that several countries had
offered asylum for any scientists who want to leave Iraq.

However, Mr Blix said some of his weapons experts were skeptical of
Iraq's suggestion that they could verify Baghdad's claims to have
dumped its biological materials more than a decade ago by digging in
areas where the Iraqis say the dumping took place.

Mr Blix could not say whether he thought inspections would continue
through the summer, given the massive US troop buildup in the region
and the talk of war.